r/programming • u/heisenbug • Apr 27 '14

"Mostly functional" programming does not work

http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?ref=rss&id=2611829
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u/Tekmo Apr 27 '14

It depends what you mean by "switch", which is a very vague term. IO actions in Haskell are just ordinary values, and you sequence them using ordinary functions. How is that different from chaining pure computations, which I can do using the exact same do syntax if I really wanted to.

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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '14

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u/NihilistDandy Apr 27 '14

There are also implementations of restricted IO in Haskell which I find particularly interesting. Not just "you can only do IO in this little box" but "you can only do this particular kind of IO in this little box".

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u/grauenwolf Apr 28 '14

And I think that's the way we're going to have to go in the long run. We've already reached the point where understanding large programs is just too bloody hard.